Gay and amish
The Queer Psychoanalysis Society
Leaving the Elderly Order Amish group equals leaving everyone and everything you know. Any Amish that identify as gay, lesbian, fluid or gender questioning will be met with condemnation and Scriptures (Leviticus, always a classic).
They will not be handed a complimentary mimic of ‘Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality’ by John Boswell.
Where traditions and heritage run intense there is short-lived choice but exit or live a lie.
Most Amish are of German descent but we are of Swiss stock, my Mom passing when I am 9, thus my upbringing with my father, a model of Swiss tolerance.
I don’t participate the church and will not leave back.
I go clubbing in Indiana and Michigan.
At 22 I step onstage, making my drag debut at Brothers Beta Club (Kalamazoo, MI) Closet Ball pageant and execute at The Zoo Bar.
I would exchange the cabaret for the poetry slam circuit in my mid 20s and seriously began writing with stars in my eyes.
The Literary Party: Growing Up Gay and Amish in America collects my poetry, writings from 2005-2010 with a few prior poems.
THE BEGINNING
The inky garbed men cluster by the shed
As the morning
What’s It Like To Be Male lover And Amish
At 17, he was removed from his home and community. He was sent, by his parents, to an ex-gay religious counselor. He was not allowed to visit his parents and to this day, his extended family and community act not know why he “left.”
This doesn’t come as a finish shock to a lot of LGBTQ people. We have familiarity with discrimination and what it feels like to have those close to you, turn away.
Many of us feel like we lose our personal faith because we’re taught that religion doesn’t accept us.
We grow accustomed to finding new support systems and a new life. But there are others where coming out can mean losing everything you thought was your life.
But what if you grew up in a society that never talks about homosexuality? What if they only see it as a problem that doesn’t affect them only others? You might respond that you have heard that happen in other countries, not here in our own.
Would it surprise you to find out that it happens not that far from Cleveland, OH?
Growing Up Amish
Ohio has the largest Amish population in the United States. That isn’t a surprise if you are driving around the Kirkland area or even further d
When someone asked what books I had been reading, I mentioned James A. Cates’ Serpent in the Garden: Amish Sexuality in a Changing World.
“Why would anyone want to write about the Amish and sex?” my interlocutor responded.
Turns out, Serpent in the Garden answers this ask well. Cates approaches gender and sexuality within the Amish community as a subject to be treated with diligent respect. His measured work hinges on the idea that the Amish endure as sexual minorities in their possess right, with cultural and spiritual expectations that set them apart from the predominant understandings of sex and gender.
Like anyone else, the Amish “cannot divorce themselves from their sexual desires, nor from the complex demands that sexuality creates.” And, even though the Amish endeavor to remain separate from the influences of mainstream culture, “they cannot help but be aware of the sexuality that plays out around them.” These two premises guide Cates’ exploration of Amish sexuality.
Cates’ examination is rooted in significant research and in relationships he has built with Amish families as a clinical psychologist in northeastern Indiana. His previous novel, Serving the Amish (2014), h
The Struggle for Acceptance: Are There LBGQT+ Amish?
So, it is Pride month and I know some people have wondered: are there gay Amish or LBGQT+ Amish? Well, of course, there are. Now, in all of the years I have been visiting Amish settlements I hold never met someone who openly identified themselves as much but, statistically, yes, there are gay and lesbian Amish.
My guess is that the more conservative the order, the more unique challenges the person faces. And because of the strict scriptural translation the Amish go by, my guess is that there is not much of a place for a gay person within the Old Order Amish. The New Order, my guess, is a bit more accepting. I realize some wonderful New Direct Amish who I can't imagine turning their support on someone because of their sexuality.
In 2019, a former Amish man named James Schwartz came out as gay in an interview with The Recent York Times. Schwartz had this to say: “Really the only choice you have if you’re queer and Amish and yearn to be true to yourself is to exit the Amish community,” said Mr. Schwartz, who now lives in Hawaii. “Otherwise, you are pretty much forced to stay in the closet.”
And that would be my guess,